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Atheist Prosperity
Atheist Prosperity Does the desire for prosperity conflict with religious values? KEVIN SMITH is on the board of directors for the centre for Inquiry, Canada’s premier venue for humanists, skeptics and freethinkers. Let’s leave God out of this one. We’re told He created man in His image, but He shouldn’t take the heat for inventing religion. That’s something only males could have dreamed up. Religion does have some positive values, but it’s just so man-o-centric. And men are greedy.
We’ve always desired power and prosperity and we’ll do anything to achieve it. Think of King Henry VIII. Recently, Pope Benedict suggested a correlation between original sin and male greed. He cited the current economic crisis, caused by the male-dominated banking industry, a topic he should be well versed in, as the leader of a male-dominated religious empire. Blame it on our mojo, even when it’s repressed. We can’t deny that when some men tread into certain faiths, their prosperity reigns supreme. Many of the old-time religions are so entrenched in society, their patriarchal system is blindly accepted as normal. But it’s no different than the new breeds. Ron L Hubbard once stated, “I want to start a religion. That’s where the money is,” years before he founded Scientology, his sci-fi global outreach experiment, now worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Suitably named evangelist Creflo Dollar teaches prosperity theology, the belief that financial blessings are the will of God. Practising what he preaches, this boy with his toys flies in his own jet, when he doesn’t feel like driving the Rolls.
Those who aren’t envious over who wears the bigger hat — women — tend to be more honest, gentle and compassionate: all traits of the biblical Jesus. “Sure, God created man before woman. But then you always make a rough draft before the final masterpiece.” I suspect a man, confident in himself, yet accepting the qualities of the fairer sex, wrote this anonymous quote. I’d bet my BMW on it.
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